The Universitat of Barcelona is proud to announce the launch of AFRICAI-RI, a new Horizon Europe – Global Health EDCTP3 project that aims to establish the first federated biomedical imaging research infrastructure in Africa.

Coordinated by Karim Lekadir, ICREA Researcher Professor and BCN-AIM Lab Director, together with Dr Dinis Nguenha, Scientific Coordinator, Fundacao Manhiça, AFRICAI-RI brings together 14 leading institutions from Africa and Europe to advance ethical, inclusive, and trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI) for healthcare applications. Over the next four years, the consortium will design and deploy a federated infrastructure that connects hospitals, universities, and research centres across the continent, enabling collaborative AI development while preserving data privacy and sovereignty.

“AFRICAI-RI represents a new chapter for digital health and medical imaging in Africa,” says Karim Lekadir. “It’s about building with Africa, for Africa, empowering local researchers and clinicians to drive AI innovation in ways that are ethical, equitable, and sustainable.”

The project focuses initially on tuberculosis and pneumonia, two of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa. By leveraging federated learning, AFRICAI-RI will train AI diagnostic tools across distributed imaging data without transferring patient information between countries.

AFRICAI-RI officially started in 2025 and will run for four years (2025–2029). The project is funded under the Horizon Europe – Global Health EDCTP3 Joint Undertaking.

Learn more about AFRICAI-RI:
🔗 www.africai-ri.eu